Is winter making you fat?

With winter fast approaching, we have already seen our evenings become cold and dark as the days have shortened and the temperature has dropped. For some, this means months of cosy and warm nights in, but for many, this is a time which can be very difficult, particularly in terms of weight management.

There are lots of reasons why the winter can wreak havoc with your weight and here are just a few:

Happy hibernating!

Just like so many animals, we tend to get an urge to hibernate when the cold sets in! Wrapping up warm, staying indoors, shutting out the cold, these are all usual behaviours as we ease into the winter, but they can have a negative impact on our weight. This feeling or desire to ‘hibernate’, leads to a dwindling interest in going outside to exercise, or in fact to do anything once that front door has shut behind us. Visiting the gym after work or taking a walk or run after dinner suddenly seems impossible, as the desire to stay warm and dry is much more pressing. Regular exercise is of course necessary if you are trying to lose weight, so as this habit drops away, it becomes very easy for weight to creep back up.

Comforting a cold

With winter, often comes a multitude of bugs, viruses and colds which can leave us feeling run down and not our best! Once again, if you are somebody who struggles with making healthy choices, this can make your struggle even harder, as the desire to comfort eat increases. When we feel ill, we often feel down; and when we feel down, we crave carbohydrates and foods high in sugars in an attempt to lift our moods. Of course, these cravings do nothing in terms of promoting healthy weight loss and if left unbalanced, it can jeopardise any progress made.

Feeling fatigued

A common obstacle people can come up against during the winter months is a condition called seasonal affective disorder (SAD). If you experience this, it is likely that you will notice feeling very fatigued during the winter months, needing much more sleep than usual. However, you do not have to have SAD to feel more tired in winter than summer. In fact, shorter days and less sunlight are huge contributing factors to many people’s energy levels. When we are fatigued, we are less likely to stick to our healthy eating plans and habits because, as we know, this takes planning, thought and effort which can be difficult to muster when energy levels are low. Motivation then drops, which means good habits are very easily broken.

So what's the good news? Well, hypnotherapy can help to counteract every single one of these difficulties winter can bring. Using positive and motivating suggestions as well encouraging healthy habits and behaviours, hypnotherapy is an excellent way of tackling those winter blues and ensuring this year winter doesn’t make you fat!

About the author

My name is Emily and I am a qualified hypnotherapist and counsellor working out of London, Canary Wharf and Essex. I specialise in taking a holistic approach to physical and mental wellness and my main areas of focus are diet and weight control, anxiety, stress and low self-esteem.